


Moonspeak

by Technicolour (Lirriel)



Category: ASTRO (Band)
Genre: Almost Platonic But Not, Fluff, Late Night Conversations, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:28:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23948446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lirriel/pseuds/Technicolour
Summary: Some truths only come out in the dark. Bin and Jinwoo spend time together after Bin returns from one of his late-night runs.
Relationships: Moon Bin/Park Jinwoo | Jin Jin
Comments: 10
Kudos: 28





	Moonspeak

**Author's Note:**

> Rated General but does briefly brush up against some of the struggles Bin has had. 
> 
> (Eunwoo has a tiny appearance at the end but not enough to justify tagging him)

He’s been counting the minutes ever since Bin headed outside. It’s him sitting on the couch and staring at the wall – because it’s 4:51 and outside the dark of night is scattered in a thousand directions, the bright lights of an insomniac city blotting out any sight of solace he might catch in the shadows. 

It’s him with his nose stuffed up and his stomach running on empty (because what did he eat last night, aside from a half-remembered snack sometime after he left the studio?) and the soft strokes of music on the inside of his ears, volume so low it sounds more like heartbeats mixing with his.

But it’s not Bin – and what he wants is Bin.

Jinwoo is rubbing at his face, grinding the heel of his palm into the hollow of his eye, when he hears the sound of wearied footsteps, the heavy placement of each, just beyond the front door. He pauses in his action, lowers his hand, and turns his head just in time to see Bin step inside.

He watches silently, as Bin toes out of his shoes, slips into his house slippers – and Bin is a mass of black in the apartment’s entrance: even the moon of his face obscured by the hoodie that presses his bangs into his eyes – and they’ve both got a nervous energy, but Bin’s is always outside and Jinwoo just shoves his so deep inside. He wonders if one day he might burst like a soda bottle shaken once too often.

(It’s 4:55, and he blames this for why his thoughts detach and reattach, forming synapses that spit and misfire. Because he runs on the same frequency as whomever he’s with, and Bin is unknowable in the hours before dawn.)

“Come sit, Binnie,” he murmurs – just loud enough that Bin hears but no one else will. For safety, he’s already closed the three-person bedroom door, and Eunwoo always sleeps with his door shut anyway.

Bin doesn’t startle, only shoves back the hood and scrapes his fingers through his bangs; in the limited light, Jinwoo sees the round of his forehead, and the sight is intimate enough that he breaks into a smile.

“Hyung?” Bin asks. His voice sounds like displaced soil, a clump with its edges crumbling away beneath the smallest touch. But he comes, compliant the way he always is beneath the bleeding moon.

_He’s only honest in the dark_ , Jinwoo thinks.

The couch sinks a little lower when Bin sits beside him – and he loves Bin like this, with all the fight run out of him, his nerves scraped so raw they’re paper-thin. He’s got no more energy to fidget, as lackluster as his namesake against the onslaught of a city without sleep. Pale and soft and comforting, and even Jinwoo knows these sorts of thoughts are terrible, but he isn’t a saint, and he isn’t an angel. Bin might say he is, but even Bin’s intuition has its blind spots. 

“I missed you,” he says. He’ll stash the moonspeak away and wait for it to transform into something more palatable beneath the light of the sun. He settles for leaning into Bin – and his whole world tilts with the movement. He’s light-headed for a moment, while his body recalibrates, and he can only giggle quietly at the sensation, because it’s something like flying without ever leaving the ground.

“Did I wake you up when I left?” Bin asks.

“No, I just knew.”

Bin sighs against him. The sound is so heavy Jinwoo can only imagine it as the heft of the earth, rising up beneath them as it shifts in slumber – but on the other side of the world, everything is bright light and laughter, so does their planet even really sleep? He thinks he would go crazy without the ability to close his eyes, and the thought is enough to press them shut. He sinks further into Bin, not so much pressing up against his side as seeping into him. He thinks they would make a pretty picture.

“Did you get away?” Jinwoo asks.

Bin scoffs. “You know I can’t. I just left it behind for a bit, by the river.” There’s a hint of pride in his voice when he adds, “I doubled back on my tracks, put some distance on it, in the alleyway behind that one bar.”

“You can talk to me about it, when you want.” Jinwoo’s eyes flutter back open. He knows this run is only a temporary reprieve. The monster that dogs Bin will show back up at their door, and someone will let it in without ever knowing – even Jinwoo can’t see it most of the time. He only knows it’s there when it presses down hard on Bin’s shoulders, and he wonders if any of the others ever considered why Bin puts so much focus on his physical health.

(You can’t fist fight your demons, but damn if Bin doesn’t try.)

Bin responds with a hum that sounds doubtful. But Jinwoo knows if he catches him at the right moment – not 4:55, but sometime around midnight, when Bin crosses between light and dark – that Bin will spill like a wrist beneath a razor.

Jinwoo used to think the comparison ugly, but there is something to be said for forcing out old blood. Sometimes you have to re-open the wound to make sure it heals properly.

“Only if you’ll talk to me,” Bin says at last.

Jinwoo laughs. He clamps down on the sound before it rips through their apartment – because that _will_ wake Eunwoo up. But he still giggles, those soft little _hee_ s that draw smiles no matter how inappropriate his timing, when Bin wraps an arm around his neck and covers his mouth. The sounds are smothered against Bin’s fingers, and he feels the smile on Bin’s lips when he places his head next to Jinwoo and shushes him.

“ _Hyung_ ,” Bin murmurs, a barely-there breath pushing out the word. But he’s still smiling, and Jinwoo smiles with him, eyes creasing into downturned crescents. Bin breathes out through his nose and settles for dropping his head and leaning forward, nose and mouth and forehead squashing against Jinwoo’s throat. His huffs of laughter break against the warm, soft skin of Jinwoo’s neck – and the only thing Jinwoo can do is bite hard on his lip, because the sensation tickles and delights in equal parts.

They curl into each other like this, clinging together in a dark that is rapidly diminishing as twilight approaches. It is the only way they can be. It is the only _time_ they can be.

In the warmth of Bin’s grasp, Jinwoo answers with a tongue that feels heavy with a thousand unsaid words. (It’s all moonspeak, because only the moon can make him say something like _I love you_ with any intent beyond platonic.)

“Trust me, Binnie.” Even these words are like stones upon his tongue, but they rise once they’re in the open air. Jinwoo is speaking into Bin’s hair, his voice the steady crawl of syrup down a tapped tree. It’ll gleam pretty like amber in the morning light, but in the dark it's nearly so black as blood. “You know that if I have something to say, I’ll say it.”

(And this is something like a lie, because they have to beg Jinwoo to spill criticism, to tell them what they’re missing and what they need to fix. But it is also true, because when it comes to the heart, Jinwoo only knows how to be painfully earnest.)

Bin flutters another sigh against Jinwoo’s chest. 4:55 is becoming a memory, and Jinwoo wonders if Bin’s monster has already returned, if Bin can hear it snuffling and nudging against the door, as insistent as a dog begging to be let inside. He wonders if this is why Bin prefers cats – but he does not ask, because Bin speaks.

“Let’s go to bed, hyung. I’m tired.”

They disentangle, and Jinwoo reaches for his phone as Bin stands up. He swipes it on, ignoring the hiss of complaint Bin directs at the sudden surge of light. It reads _6:12_ ; he sees that the sky is lightening, that night is well and truly ending. There is no more darkness, only the slow and steady intrusion of the outside: the scratchy bark of crows, the irritable honks of drivers, the waking babble of a city that never went to sleep in the first place.

In the spreading light, he sees Bin: sweatpants and hoodie and slippers, hair sweat-clumped on his head and his mouth drawn in that half-smile that signals he’s unsure and anxious. Having Jinwoo’s stare leveled on him is enough to draw Bin’s hand up, and he scratches half-heartedly at the only swathe of skin on his neck not hidden by the folds of his sweatshirt.

“What?” he asks. “What’re you looking at?” He’s nothing more than boyish appeasement, all the deepest parts of him lost in the dawning light of day.

Jinwoo sweeps away his own shadows and smiles back, something soft and warm: a pale imitation of their eldest and their youngest, because he’s always done his best work reflecting someone else.

“You’re cute,” he answers.

Bin sets his mouth in a pout, but he is only able to hold it for a second before it rises into a return smile. “Ah, leave me alone,” he answers. He tugs at one of the drawstrings on his hoodie, briefly fiddling with it, and adds, “Make sure you get some sleep, hyung. You were up late.” He heads for their shared bedroom, and Jinwoo watches him go, still wearing that small smile.

His stomach is starting to protest how little food it has gotten, and his eyes throb dully – but Jinwoo sits there until Eunwoo shuffles out of his own room to start brewing coffee. It’s only his questioning, “Hyung?” and the curious tilt of his head that makes Jinwoo rise.

(Jinwoo lost one of his earbuds in the couch sometime between 4:55 and 6:12, but it’s a faraway concern when he’s running on fumes.)

He offers Eunwoo a smile that murmurs fatigue and says, “Good morning.” He steps past Eunwoo, offers him a friendly pat on his hip (bed-warmed and soft), and starts scrounging around for something fast and filling to eat.

“Were you up late?” Eunwoo asks – and it’s cute how sleep-slurred his speech is.

“Not that late,” Jinwoo answers. “I just accidentally woke up a bit earlier than normal.”

“What time?”

Jinwoo hums, fingers tapping out an erratic rhythm on the counter. He finally answers, with a smile that’s gone soft from exhaustion, “Oh, about 4:55.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally part of a larger collection that was meant for Jinwoo's birthday, but I've been incredibly busy since late January (death of my dog, followed by extensive house renovations, followed by just recently getting a new puppy) so my writing time shrank to almost zero. :') 
> 
> (everyone else has a buncha time during quarantine, I have none LMAO)
> 
> I've got a few chapters in various states of completion, but this is the only thing I have that's fully complete* so I figured I'd throw it out there since I haven't put out anything in a while. Just to show I'm not dead LMAO
> 
> Hopefully as puppy settles into the house, I'll finally be able to get back to writing. Regardless, thanks for your patience, hope this tides you over <3
> 
> *I technically have a complete chapter of something new written as well, but I'd like to get its second chapter and more of _Red Hart_ done before I release it out into the wild. If you like dogs, though, look forward to that :')


End file.
